Dhamma and meditation teacher Beth Upton — who’s other chats I’ve posted — recently held a three part event with Dharma Gates called “Truth, Suffering and Liberation”. I’ve edited out most everything except my responses to Beth’s questions and her responses to me so please watch the full video at the end of this post especially if requiring more context.
Beth read an excerpt of the Aggañña Sutta about the origin of human kind on planet earth then linked our suffering, caused by the defilements (dramatic depicted in the sutta) to the Buddha’s antidote: the The Universal Beautiful Mental Factors (sobhanasādhāraṇa). Beth then offered a short teaching followed by a guided meditation and discussion on her condensed and more practical version of these Mental Factors from the Abhidhamma which are:
• Faith
• Mindfulness
• Non-greed
• Non-hatred
• Morality
• Balance
• Tranquility
• Lightness
• Softness
• Flexibility
• Uprightness/Authenticity/Truthfulness
• Proficiency
This post includes my responses (in an edited video) to Beth’s group-guiding questions along with a few new written responses.
Integrating Presence 